Of Bombs and Box-steps
by sachi-sama
Summary: "On the list of things he's vowed to never do in his lifetime, trusting Izaya Orihara with anything is up top. Right above giving up beer. But the informant does have a point. Why would he risk getting blown up, too? Throwing caution to the wind, he reaches out and takes the red one in his hand. Breathing deeply, he tosses Izaya one more cautionary glance, and then he pulls it."


_Surprise! A short little Shizaya for all of you being so patient with me. My muse is high these days, so when I got this idea, I just went with it. Hope you enjoy!_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own DRRR! Still. But I've written SO MANY stories for it, I feel I should be entitled to SOMETHING. **_

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><p><em>Of Bombs and Box-steps<em>

Shizuo can't really ever figure out the exact time and place he began losing control of his life, but he likes to think it was the day Shinra introduced him to Izaya Orihara. It was an innocent enough introduction, you know, until Shizuo began throwing punches and Izaya cut him with a knife. Then a few less than hospitable words were said. Okay, so it wasn't innocent. But either way, if Shizuo could pinpoint the exact moment in time his life began going downhill, it was that day in high school. The first time he looked into those scheming carmine eyes.

Anytime something goes bad in Ikebukuro, he just _knows_ Izaya is behind it. Despite being able to pretty much _smell_ the bastard in the air when he's near, he can also smell foul play a mile away. And pretty much everything Izaya has ever done in his life reeks of foul play; that much is certain. So it goes without saying when something loud pops overhead and a woman starts screaming in front of him that something isn't right about today. And if it's not right, Shizuo is about ninety percent sure Izaya's got something to do with it.

"Freeze! Everybody fucking stand where you are, or we're all gonna be blown to bits, you hear me?!" A man is standing on one of the elevated platforms in the middle of one of the largest buildings in the city, holding a gun in the air. Shizuo sighs loudly, looking down at his boss, and wishing he could be anywhere other than where he is.

"Friend of yours?" Tom asks him playfully.

"No fuckin' clue who he is," Shizuo replies. "Don't really care to know, either."

The two of them were heading up to the corporate offices upstairs to deal with one of Tom's high end clients who's _way_ over his head in debt. They were just about to the elevators, too. Today just doesn't seem to be Shizuo's day at all, and the whole thing is just pissing him off beyond belief. He wonders if the crazy fucker will care if he lights a cigarette.

"We're the Saviors of Ikebukuro," the man cries passionately, "and we're here to free you from your mundane lives! Places like this," he gestures around, "are taking up your lives! Don't be afraid to reject the modern world! Mankind needs to go back to the way it used to be! Bare necessities!"

Shizuo starts to hum the Disney song _Bare Necessities_ in his head, not taking any of this seriously.

"So in order to do that, we're blowing this place sky high."

The same woman from before opens her mouth as if to scream again, but Shizuo nudges her and tells her to shut the fuck up. She must be more scared of him than the prospect of blowing up, because she doesn't open her mouth again, though she is still crying silently.

Shit. Now he feels bad.

"But we don't want to take any lives," the man says. "Everyone here is an innocent victim to the corporate dogs. Except for this fucker right here." Shizuo watches as another masked man leads a supposed hostage into the building, and double takes because of how similar the guy looks to Izaya.

"Hey. Isn't that the guy you hate?" Tom asks him quietly.

There's no way these ragtag extremists could catch someone like _Izaya_. Right?

"I don't think so…" he answers.

"Hey! You two!" The man with the gun shouts. "Maybe you didn't hear me! I said we're not taking lives, but if you keep carrying on your goddamn conversations, I won't hesitate to put a bullet between your eyes!"

The man who looks similar to Izaya makes such an Izaya-like expression that it has Shizuo reeling.

"Shizu-chaaaan! Hey, Shizu-chan! Fancy meeting you here!"

"Oh, fuck my life."

"Shut the hell up!" Shizuo watches as the man hits Izaya over the head with the gun, drawing a little blood. "You're not here to say anything to your friends. You're here to die."

"I think I'll do as I please, if you don't mind," Izaya says with a grin, despite the fact he's bleeding out the side of his head. Shizuo doesn't know why seeing him like that makes his stomach clench with anger, but he chalks it up to the fact that someone like these lowlife assholes could catch the informant when he's been trying for _years_.

"Izaya here thought it would be alright to tell his little Yakuza friends where a few of our best guys were, and they ended up knocked off. So he's staying here for the fireworks by himself."

Izaya's going to be blown up? It seems to be an unoriginal way to go. Shizuo won't even be able to watch him suffer.

"I don't think referring to your little homemade bombs as a fireworks show is the highest road you could've taken," Izaya says brightly. "You could have gone so many other ways with that."

"Take him upstairs," the guy scowls, hitting the informant again for good measure. "And make sure he's tied up. I don't want him escaping. Also check and make sure they're emptying out up there. We don't want any unnecessary casualties."

Shizuo watches as they lead Izaya to the elevators, almost in slow motion. When the elevator starts going up, the guy points to the doors and tells everyone to get out.

Then, it's mass chaos.

Everyone begins running for the exits at once, half-trampling over each other. Shizuo's tall enough to see over most of the people, and he helps navigate Tom to the exit, but not before punching some asshole who tries to push him out of the way. Tom looks at him knowingly.

"You're staying?"

"Gotta take care of some stuff," Shizuo says.

"You're going to go save Izaya, aren't you?"

"Save isn't the word for it. If he's tied up, he'll have a hard time running, won't he?"

Rolling his eyes, Tom turns to follow the panicked crowd outside, and Shizuo makes his way to the stairs. People really are the worst in a situation like this. The best thing they could do for themselves would be to act like they had sense, and exit the building as calmly as they could. Instead they're piling on the elevators and making the damn things get stuck on one floor. The others are running down the stairs for all they're worth, casting Shizuo anxious glances as he passes them by going up.

"Hey, man, there are terrorists up there," one guy says to him in a frenzied voice.

"No shit," he says back, continuing his trek.

When he nears the higher floors, he stops running into people, and he wonders vaguely if the building's been emptied. Izaya shouldn't be guarded, at least. If the guys are leaving him to die, they'll have to evacuate as well. He finally reaches the highest floor, breathing heavily. He needs to quit smoking, dammit. Otherwise he'll never be able to keep chasing the flea.

The corporate offices are empty, and the entire hallway looks like a ghost town. Shizuo walks down the hall slowly, footsteps echoing off the polished granite, and in spite of everything he just thought, he lights a cigarette. Damn things are addicting, alright?

"Oi. Izaya!" he calls, and it casts an eerie echo in the silence, bouncing back, _Zaya, zaya, zaya_.

There isn't a response at first, but then-

"Shizu-chan? That couldn't possibly be you I hear, could it?"

Shizuo follows the voice to find Izaya in one of the empty offices, tied to a swivel chair. The informant looks up at him with a gleeful expression, eyes slanted in that damn catlike way of his.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Shizu-chan? Surely you know this place is about to be a crater in your dank city. You should exit the building accordingly."

"Oh, I will," Shizuo says. "But I'm taking you with me."

Izaya blinks, his eyes widening each time, and then a grin splits his face. "You're rescuing me? This can't really be happening, can it?"

"Shut the fuck up," Shizuo huffs. "I don't look at it that way. I ain't _rescuing_ you. I'm just helping you out so I can kill you myself later. It's as simple as that."

"You could just kill me now, brute. We're both right here, are we not?"

"Where's the fun in shooting fish in a barrel? Nah, I'll let you go so I can catch you on my own. Cheating is for tools." He leans down and unties Izaya's feet, but keeps his hands bound behind his back. The informant shoots him a nonplussed expression at not having his arms freed. "Speaking of tools, how the fuck did those guys catch you anyway? You slowing down with old age?"

"You're older than me, you Cro Magnon asshole," Izaya says. "And no, they must have followed me home, because they jumped me in an alley. I'm not impossible to catch, Shizu-chan. I'm just too fast for _you_."

"I don't believe for a second that you're not part of this. You always have something to do with these things. I'm just waiting for you to have the detonator up your sleeve or something. That seems like you."

"I assure you, I have no part in this. What would my motive even be?"

"I don't know, what the fuck is your motive half the time you do anything? Seems to me like you just do stuff to do it."

"No, that's you. Everything I do has purpose."

"Yeah, yeah. So did they tell you how long you had till you blew up? 'Cause we're kinda wasting time here."

Izaya walks around him to head for the stairs. "A good twenty or so minutes. Long enough for them to get out in time," he shrugs. "The detonator is in the basement, and it's going to see off a series of bombs inside the building."

"How'd these guys pull this off in such a well-guarded place?"

"They're an extremist group, Shizu-chan. They probably have men on their side who work here."

They start filing down the stairs, Shizuo keeping a close eye on Izaya to make sure he doesn't try anything. They're silent the entire time aside from Izaya's absent humming, but then they keep going down, past the main floor.

"We're going to the basement, aren't we?" Izaya asks with a smirk.

"Yeah. Gonna try to disarm the bomb."

"Oh, this is too rich. How do you plan to disarm a bomb with your lack of knowledge? Will you head-butt it and hope for the best? I hardly think any plan you have will work."

"Do you ever stop talking? There's a chance we could figure it out."

"What makes you think I'm going to help you?"

"Don't you wanna get back at those guys for beating your face in? I'd say fucking up their little bomb fest will be the best way to do it."

Izaya grins and shakes his head. "You always surprise me, Shizu-chan. I'll give you that much."

The basement is the ground floor of the parking deck, full of abandoned cars. At least people had enough sense to put their own lives ahead of their possessions. Well, then again it _is_ emptier than normal. Hopefully everyone made it out on time.

"So, what's the plan?" Izaya asks as he bounds alongside Shizuo. "Are we using your monster nose to sniff out the detonator?"

"It's in here somewhere. We just gotta find where."

"Ah, it's interesting to watch you try and play hero. I'm so used to seeing you cause destruction, it's almost surreal to see you trying to stop it," Izaya says dreamily.

"Yeah, well," Shizuo huffs, "maybe I get tired of destroying shit."

In the back of the parking deck is a tiny office where they usually keep the cameras and change for the toll booth. Shizuo pulls Izaya with him to check it, and is immediately greeted by a mass of wires and blinking lights in the form of a suitcase. It's sitting in the unoccupied chair, left behind.

"Shit," Shizuo breathes. "I didn't think it'd have so many frigging buttons…"

"What did you expect? A 'How-To' journal? While I admire the fact you're trying to cast aside your destructive nature, I do think it's time for us to go."

"Shut up and let me think!"

"Don't hurt yourself," Izaya mutters, but Shizuo manages to block him out. Okay, what wires did they always say to pull in the movies? The red one? Or was it _never_ pull the red wires? He can feel Izaya's eyes boring a hole into his skull.

"Oi. C'mere," he says, waving the informant forward.

"I already said I'm not helping you," Izaya says stiffly, casting a hand in the air.

"Yeah, I know, but- Hey! How'd you untie your hands?"

"I'm magiiiiic!"

Scowling, Shizuo turns back to the detonator, reaching for one of the blue wires. The clock says he has exactly nine minutes.

"Oh, not that one. You'll kill us all," Izaya says happily. Shizuo can see him dancing out the corner of his eye.

"Are you seriously fucking getting off on this? What are you, a megalomaniac? We're about to fucking _die_, Izaya!"

"I don't know what you're talking about, I'm simply doing a box-step," Izaya says absently. "As for what _you're _doing, well. You're the one getting us killed."

"You're such a crazy fucker, I swear to God."

"And megalomania is mass homicide. No one is dying aside from us, so that's not the right word."

Tuning him out, Shizuo tries to concentrate on the task at hand. Too bad he literally has no idea what he's even trying to do. Not end up blown to bits seems like a good start.

"Pull the red one, Shizu-chan," Izaya says, leaning over his shoulder.

"Why the fuck should I trust you?"

"What other choice do you have? Besides, I've got too much to do tomorrow to die tonight. I'd pull it fast if I were you."

Okay, on the list of things he's vowed to never do in his lifetime, trusting Izaya Orihara with anything is up top. Right above giving up beer. But the informant does have a point. Why would he risk getting blown up, too? Throwing caution to the wind, he reaches out and takes the red one in his hand. Breathing deeply, he tosses Izaya one more cautionary glance, and then he pulls it.

The beeping doesn't stop, but the clock does. And then- nothing. Nothing happens. They're safe. Izaya didn't lie.

"Congratulations, you've stopped a useless band of thugs from blowing up a building no one cares about. Now can we _go?_ This place is stuffy, and I've got a show I want to see!"

Shizuo scowls at him, but can't quite get the hostility into his features. He's so full of adrenaline at the moment, it's all he can do to not hug the damn man close and spin him around in celebratory circles. They did it. They saved the building. Maybe they'd forgive some of the dozens he's destroyed if word gets out he actually saved one!

As soon as they step outside, Shizuo turns and prepares to go separate ways and leave the flea to do whatever the fuck it is he usually does, but then a cold hand is holding his face, pulling him down to Izaya's level, and everything he was going to go home and do is thrown for a loop.

"Thank you for saving me, Shizu-chan," Izaya breathes before closing the gap between their lips, kissing him so fiercely that it's making the entire world spin. And maybe it's still the adrenaline coursing through his veins, or maybe it's the fact that Izaya actually helped him for once, but he finds himself pulling the damn man closer to himself and kissing him back with equal fervor. He's barely aware of the informant's hand rising up until they part for breath.

"By the way," Izaya says while licking his lips, "the wire you pulled was just for the timer. All the other wires were detonators for the buildings a few blocks over."

"I… Wait, what?"

In Izaya's hand is a small remote, and Shizuo is helpless to do anything else but watch him push the button.

Behind them, buildings start to crumble from the inside. The explosions light up the night sky, sounding somewhat like a thousand gunshots going off at once. They're not exactly safe where they are, but they're not near enough to the blasts to be in immediate danger. Izaya planned this. He planned _all_ of it. The building they were in was never actually in danger, and he _knew _Shizuo would try to rescue him. Shizuo turns to him to punch him in the face, only to find he's dancing again, a solo box-step.

"Destruction is a form of creation, Shizu-chan!" he sings. "And we're here to see it all happen!"

"I-Izaya…you're so fucking crazy…"

"No, I don't think so. Seeing our new world created in front of our very eyes- That makes us _gods_, Shizu-chan."

And just like that, Shizuo finds himself god status, unwitting pawn to Izaya's master plan- much like their entire relationship, now that he thinks about it. And then he's pulled into the informant's box-step, the two of them dancing like madmen to the soundtrack of explosions and homemade spotlights from the blasts.

Yeah. His life has definitely gone downhill since high school.

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><p><em>Sachi: Gotta love Izaya. This work was inspired loosely by <em>_Fight Club__, the movie, not the book. (The book is better, coughcoughcough.) I hope you enjoyed, because it's always fun to write an insane Izaya. Review for my love!_


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